Snapshots from Iceland #1

In which we hop from bay to fjord around the East and North of Iceland, depart for Jan Mayan more than once, break things, fix things, and officially cross the arctic circle.

Attempt(s) for Jan Mayen

Jan Mayen is a small volcanic island under Norwegian jurisdiction. Located at 71 N, this was planned to be the northern apex of our adventure, prior to returning to Isafjordur (Iceland) for a pre-Greenland crew change on or around the 14th of July. It’s an interesting little outpost, only inhabited by military and meteorological personnel, and was an important hub for arctic whaling and exploration in past centuries. Nick and Teddy had visited once before for a day or two; Hue and I were both keen to expand our latitudinal reach, and check out another research station. 400 nm NNW of Djupivogur, we should be able to get there in four to five days, Tāwhirimātea and Tangaroa willing. We’ve got about a two week window all up, so need to make every day count.

We awake on the thirtieth of June to a dusting of snow on the surrounding peaks (< 1,000 m) on either side of the fjord. A good day to deal with a malfunctioning head pump, the smell is much more bearable. A few last minute chores (re-secure running backstays, re-seal cabin top hatch, fill fuel and water tanks) before a last soak in the local hot pools. While caffeinating at the hotel we notice clouds parading down the fjord out to sea, an early NW swing (good) or local funneling? We’ll see. We’re farewelled by Jon and three of his many grandchildren as we cast off at 1500. No sooner has Teddy poked her snout out of the fjord entrance are we greeted by a familiar friend, a stiff NNE, 25+ knots on the nose pushing up a steep chop. Our cloud observations were premature, we’re forced to a heading of 120 T as we head offshore and wait for the forecast wind to swing. We may as well stay busy while we wait, so we progressively gear down the sail plan, reefing main and mizzen, dropping genoa for working jib, then discarding the mizzen. Time to work. No self-steering today, we want height if we’re going to make any VMG towards the Norwegian rock. It’s good heavy going for our first few hours back at sea, each wave over the cabin top further sluicing away warm memories of espresso coffee and hot pools. We tack across after making about twelve miles offshore, and can point to 350 T – better, but slow going in this sea.

Working to stay as high on the wind as possible, Hue luffs up so I can crank in the jib and stays’l. And the steering goes. The wheel and rudder are totally disassociated. Teddy drops fifteen degrees or so off the wind but holds course, as Hue and I burrow through the pile of rope and chain in the cockpit locker to find the tiller right at the bottom. We’ve got steering back within a minute, but we’re not going to be sailing all the way to JM on tiller alone. “Tuuuuurrnn around…” It’s a good workout at the tiller until we’re enough in the lee of land to re-hoist the mizzen and set Teddy on the train tracks to Stöðvarfjörður. Tied up by 2300, we’ve made a grand total of fifteen miles up the coast in eight hours. Time for a sleep, deal with the steering situation in the morning.

It takes the whole morning to ready for leaving again. Nick and Hue wrestle with the nemesis (non-brand name paraffin stove) yet again, removing, cleaning and replacing multiple jets. The thing’s been giving us grief the whole trip, necessitating more and more “creativity” and patience in the galley. I wrestle with the steering, not only reconnecting everything, but reducing the slack in the system and triple checking all connectors/fastenings. It’s a fiddly, greasy job, using a wire hook to retrieve dropped cables from the bottom of the wheel pedestal, and making use of all three vice-grips on board to prevent dropping anything else into the bilge. As before, it was a u-bolt clamp slipping that caused the steering to fail. With the steering fully functional, and new stove parts being mailed to Isafjordur, we cast off at 1400, motoring out into a dead calm sea. The calm before?

We turn northeast by 1530, hoisting sails as we pass Skrudur Island, a barren guano covered rock beneath a canopy of gannets. What little breeze there is is light, and we make slow progress up the coast. Slow but pleasant; as we pass each headland a new fjord opens up to port, snow capped peaks and low cloud reflecting splendid afternoon light the length of the fjord. The yanmar is kicked back into life off Seley Island, as we wish for the forecast northwesterly that should give us a good kick towards Jan Mayen.

I’m on watch after dinner, and the NW begins to bring it from 2100, steadily rising to above 30 knots and a 3-4 m steep sea pushing into the remaining chop from yesterday. Business time. Nick and I make multiple sail changes, alternating roles as the rising gale fluctuates through several lulls, and we’re trying to squeeze as much “offshore and north” as possible out of the conditions. In this sea state, each sail change takes ten to fifteen minutes. One man turns the helm down, weaving the easiest course through the sea while keeping eyes on the foredeck at all times. The bowman is mainly on his knees on the bowsprit, often plunged mid-thigh in water, one elbow cranked around the pulpit and the bitter end of a halyard between his teeth, unlashing and lashing sails with numb fingers as a cold wind buffets his face. We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto! Genoa to working jib, back to genoa, reef the main, drop the mizzen, re-hoist the reefed mizzen. There’s a bit on tonight and despite the sail plans deployed, the combination of wind and sea state are dragging us east off the wind. She’s tough mahi, made so much easier by the relative lack of darkness. This would be miserable during a real night – at least we can see the waves that are about to flood the cockpit.

It’s 0130, Nick and I are doing math in the cockpit as the conditions continue to do what they do, and the barometer is slowly dropping. We’re making F-all northing at this angle, likely achieving less than 50 miles VMG. Keep this up and we’ll be making it all work and no play for the rest of the trip. Work our arse off to get to JM, be exhausted for the day or two we might get ashore (conditions allowing in sub-par anchorages), then high tail it to Isafjordur in time to make our flight commitments. All three of us are relatively accustomed to “type 2 fun”, but we could well be flogging the horse just for the sake of it. All work and no play.Hue and I had already discussed this possibility earlier in the afternoon, and were prepared to forego JM in exchange for more time exploring the Icelandic coast. The pin is pulled; we tack back and head for land. Nick heads below to warm up and rest, he’s less paranoid about staying dry than I am, and the cold has got to him. I stay at the helm, Guy Cotten and multiple merino layers keeping me happy. We’ve got to maintain as much height as possible so we can clear Bardnes Peninsula and make one of three options – Seydisfjordur, Mjoifjordur, or Nordfjardadfloi. Say those five times as fast as you can.

Hue comes topside around 0330, as we work our way back to land through a very messy seas, the wind becoming shiftier as land effects come into play. The big gusts are in the 40 knot range, the wind is cold and heavy with spray, the leeward rail is doing its best impression of a multihull’s ama. Occasional lulls have prompted us to wind the yanmar over, keeping apparent wind forward at all times in order to maintain the stabilisation provided by full sails. Nick’s back up at 0420, and I go below, still warm and dry after seven hours at the helm. Wedging myself in the leeward bunk as best I can, I attempt some sleep, only to be thrown into the table some thirty minutes later. Due to my total entombment in my sleeping bag, and my arms being pinned at the elbows, it takes a good ten minutes or so or wriggling to extricate myself and return to bunk carrying a few extra bruises. No meeting with the cousin of death* for me, I may as well go back outside and enjoy the rest of the ride. The relative calm of approaching a windward shore has now been well and truly replaced by intense funneling down the fjord, exacerbated by weird squirty puffs rolling vertically off the hills around us.

Hue and I drop sails and ready the docking lines as we approach the large concrete fisherman’s wharf at Neskauptadur, the town within our southernmost haven – Njordfjordur. Not a chance in hell we could work our way up to either of the more northern options without many hours of hard tacking. Thankfully it’s low tide, so we have a good two and a half metres of concrete wharf to provide some lee respite. Despite the respite, we’re still getting pushed off strongly, and it takes four attempts to tie up, necessitating approaching within two boat-lengths of the beach before turning out to come alongside on starboard. A frantic jump/scramble/climb with the bow-line over my shoulders, followed by shuttle runs up and down the dock to adjust bow and stern as Nick plays the throttle, and we’re secure at 0700. A quick cup of tea and some noodles and we fall over, dead to the world.

We’re woken just before noon by a cop, hailing us from the dock for permission to come aboard. The authorities are a little interested in the yacht that reported leaving Iceland two days in a row, and is still here.. Formalities completed, we’re free to chat with other visitors – David and Andrea McKay from Australia, cruising on their Van de Stadt 48′ (Diomedea) from Scotland via the Faroes. They’re heading to the west fjords and Greenland as well; no doubt we’ll see them again.

See: Nas – NY State of Mind

Downwind send to Raufarhofn

After a day of yanmar’ing our way up the hazy coast from Neskauptadur and eating thai-inspired cod head soup, the breeze has filled in enough to throw up some cloth. Main up and drawing, but the genoa is confined to the deck – the halyard jammed at the masthead and not freeing with any amount of jiggling and flicking. An injured crew member several years ago has Nick hesitant to send anyone aloft at sea, and Teddy will be lacking her top gear until our next port. Under main and staysail we wend our way through panicked rafts of puffins, as the light fog cloaks the glacial coastline in ethereal obscurity. We pull into Borgarfjordur around 2100, but the sole wharf is unprotected from the slop, the mast wavering too much for Nick’s liking. The rig-rat will have to wait till the inner harbour of Raufarhofn.

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We cast off from Borgarfjordur at 0530, we’ve got about nine hours to get around Langanes Peninsula before the gate closes to the north coast. The grey sky hangs low this morning, although not so low as to suppress the sou’easterly. We skim along a greasy sea on a lovely flat run, the happy puffing of the diesel burner intermittently interrupted by some foolhardy foredeck fiddling. Coming up to 1600, we’ve crossed the apex of Langanes, an impressive wall of black basalt columns with a fresh-prince flattop. A feeding humpback waves the “OK to gybe” from beneath a cloud of terns, and we swing across to the port board, heading WNW. Our first glimpses of the northern coast offer a new landscape from the fjord-cut east, low rolling dunelands interspersed with basaltic headlands.

As we pass Skoruvikurbjarg Point a snotty little squall fills in on the transom, and we’re running deep at over seven knots (confirmed). It’s a wet wild ride running the tight-rope down the gybe line, basalt-cliffed headlands rearing out of the haze to port occasionally necessitating a quick flick across of the boom. Teddy want’s her genoa back, and she’s charging down the home straight to retrieve the halyard. Seven knots under main and stays’l alone – the big girl’s still got legs. After several gybes at pace we lay the harbour entrance, round the leading mark and coast into the inner harbour, tying up around 2200. 90 nm covered in 16.5 hours; a record for Teddy so far. Good girl, we’ll get your genoa back in the morning.

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Grimsey Island

We tied up alongside the ferry wharf on Grimsey Isalnd at 0200 on the 8th of July, after a motorsail through light rain over the preceding evening. We wake up to a large cruise ship outside the harbour, and a small fleet of RIBs carrying hordes of bright-jacketed tourists ashore. Rush hour. Grimsey is a small island 25 miles north of the mainland, bisected by the Arctic Circle. Visitors flock for photos of themselves “crossing the circle”, yet due to the varying tilt of the earth’s axis, many miss the mark; the Arctic Circle is moving north approximately 14 m per year at Grimsey, and will “leave” the island in 2047. We made sure to walk to the northern tip of the island to definitely cross into the arctic, and had a quick swim while we were there.

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Grimsey allowed our closest encounters with Puffins, the clifftops teeming with the bright-beaked birds, endlessly entertaining with their improbable flight. The fishing seemed good that day, with most birds returning from the water with a bill full of sand eels.

After lunch at ashore we cast off at 1500, motoring across the oily sea towards an appointment with a plumber (it’s a shit story) in Silgurfjordur. Multiple dolphin and humpback encounters against a dramatic backdrop of the snow capped mountainous north coast. If there was ever a place to listen to a soothing diesel chugging away, this is it.